278 GENERAL VIEWS, 



directions by roads and paths, are explored without 

 difficulty ; and the wild animals no longer find safe re- 

 fuge in them. Generations of trees are renewed in 

 quick succession, on a soil which the industry of the 

 proprietor keeps in constant requisition, and it is mere 

 chance, when a single stick is left to end its career by 

 old age. Far in the north there are several forests 

 which still preserve some traces of the primeval veget- 

 ation of Europe. In these the oaks, spared by the 

 axe, acquire an enormous size ; while others, worn 

 out by age, fall of themselves, are decomposed, and 

 help unceasingly to augment the surface of the soil, 

 covered with high Mosses and thick Lichens, that pre- 

 serve a prolific moisture. 



None however approach in magnificence the forests 

 which shade the equinoctial regions of Africa and Ame- 

 rica. One is never satiated in admiring there the end- 

 less multitude of vegetables brought into near contact 

 with each other, and mingled promiscuously together ; 

 so different among themselves, and often so extraordi- 

 nary in structure and produce ; those enormous trees 

 still exhibiting no symptoms of decay, though their age 

 goes back to a period at but little distance from the last 

 revolution of our globe ; those towering Palms, contras- 

 ting by their simple forms with all that surrounds them ; 

 those extensive climbers ; those Ratans which, knit- 

 ting together their long and flexible branches by num- 

 berless knots and turns, encircle as one group the 

 whole vegetation of these extensive regions. To clear 

 a path through these, neither fire not axe is sufficient ; 

 the one extinguishes for want of circulation in the air, 

 the other is broken or blunted by the hardness of the 

 wood it meets. The soil cannot afford place to the 

 numberless germs which it developes. Each tree dis- 

 putes with others, which press from all sides, the soil 



